A worldwide distributed computing network that harnessed the downtime on 2.4 million computers in more than 190 countries, the Vatican and Antarctica, has trimmed years from the research effort by winnowing 35 million potential smallpox drug molecules down to a few thousand with promise. Now scientists can test those molecules in the lab at the Army's biodefense research center at Fort Detrick in Frederick
Scientists hope to develop the first treatment for smallpox by harnessing the "downtime" of two million PCs around the world.
Responding to worries that smallpox could become a weapon of bioterrorism, a group of research universities and corporations and the Defense Department are developing a networked computer project intended to accelerate the search for a cure for smallpox.